


Transparent

by Galaga87



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, How Do I Tag, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:42:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25517473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galaga87/pseuds/Galaga87
Summary: Virgil developed his powers when he was 7 years old and quite literally dropped out of existence. He was transferred onto a different plane of existence where others are unable to see or even hear him. And he’s had to learn how to take care of himself. He goes to school on the tiny chance that he’ll be able to get back to reality, but as he’s approaching the middle of his junior year of highschool, he’s losing hope of ever getting to even simply wish someone a good evening.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders/Deceit | Janus Sanders, Logic | Logan Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Comments: 15
Kudos: 71





	1. School

His phone alarm blares and he groans, rolling over in the confined space. He let it ring for a few minutes, staying curled up for as long as he can before he gets up and shuts the alarm off. He sits with his eyes closed for a few moments, his phone clutched in his hand as he resists the urge to chuck it across the room. Goodness knows he can’t afford a new one.  
He crawls out of the cat cage he’d been sleeping in and grabs his giant backpack, taking it to the bathroom at the shelter. He pulls out his toothbrush and toothpaste and quickly brushes his teeth. He changes into a new outfit for the day, pulling on the hoodie that he's had to mend so many times it looks like a patchwork quilt. He applies a layer of eyeshadow under his eyes, feeling the need to excuse his eye bags from lack of sleep even though no one would ever see them. He sighed, resigning himself to the day as he walked out of the shelter and started heading towards the school.  
It’s a half an hour walk but honestly, anything is better than taking public transportation. Even walking in the pouring rain would be better than having to deal with the pain if someone accidently bumped into him. As much as anyone can touch him when he’s on a completely different plane.  
He finally trudges up to the school and goes to find the group of three friends that he follows around throughout the day. Since he can’t interact with anybody, he can’t register for classes and is stuck picking a student to follow and hoping they’ll have good classes. Recently though, he’d found a good group to follow. They have most of their classes together and those that they’re separated for, he can just pick a random one to follow.  
There’s Roman King, a theater kid. He’s a conjurer, but everyone oversimplifies the ability. They think he’s creating the objects from nothing, but they have to come from somewhere. On Virgil’s plane however, he can see there’s a constant maelstrom of objects surrounding him, the objects changing depending on what he’s thinking at the moment. If he wants to summon an object, all he has to do is reach out and pull it from Virgil’s plane into his. His twin brother has the same power, though they tend to think of very different things. Virgil tends to avoid Remus so he won’t have a panic attack at the horrifying things that generally surround the demented teen.  
Then there’s Patton Foster, an absolute sweetheart who’s prone to dad jokes and the occasional random crying fit when everybody’s emotions become too much. Virgil could never imagine being an empath, he has enough problems with his own emotions.  
Lastly there’s Logan Berry. A telepath with perfect recall. Intimidating, at least until you get him gushing about one topic or another. He appreciates the other boy's calm demeanor, it helps balance out the bubbly personality of his boyfriend and Princey.  
As he follows them to first period, he stays at the very edge of the hallway, trying not to bump into anybody. Coming into contact with other people is painful, they’re firmly anchored in what Virgil thinks of as the first plane. The other person feels a strange shivering sensation down their spine but Virgil…Virgil is practically sent flying. Animals seem to exist on multiple planes, so he can interact with them with no problems, a helpful thing considering how he spends most of his time.  
He plops down on the floor at the edge of the room, leaning on the wall with his backpack placed next to him. He positions himself so that he can see the board and keep an eye on the other occupants of the room. Roman is gesturing grandly, as though he’s performing onstage and Patton and Logan are captivated audience members. They’re holding hands as they watch Roman in amusement, occasionally interrupting his story to add onto it. Virgil feels such a sharp spear of longing go through him at the sight that Patton lifts his head and looks around the room in confusion. “Sh*t,” he thinks to himself, trying to squash down the feelings tearing through him, “you know you’re never going to get to be part of a group, why do you insist on torturing yourself with what you can never have?” He feels the familiar stirrings of his anxiety rising through him as Patton continues looking around the room, his eyes eventually settling on a spot near Virgil. Confusion is clear on his face as he squeezes Logan’s hand to subtly get his attention, evidently talking telepathically with him so they don’t interrupt Roman’s story. Before Logan can begin to try to work out the implications of what Patton was telling him, their history teacher, Mr. Sanders walks into the room. He looks like a disaster, papers spilling out of the folders he’s carrying and a large coffee mug scarcely clutched in his hands. He slams the mug down on the desk, effectively silencing his students and quickly explains that he was late because his car broke down on the way to the school.  
After Mr. Sanders manages to get himself in order, he begins to pass out an assignment to the class. As the papers are passed around, Virgil carefully scoots over and discreetly touches the top packet on the pile, pulling it into his plane. He goes back over to his backpack and searches around in it for a moment before pulling out a clipboard and a pencil. He relaxes as class starts and he settles himself into the familiar exuberance of their teachers voice as he scribbles down answers on the worksheet.  
~~~  
When the end of class came around,Virgil nearly sighed in relief. The period had passed fairly uneventfully beyond Virgil stiffening as a spike of fear stabbed through him every time either Patton or Logan glanced towards where he was sitting. Luckily for him, the next class was the one the boys didn’t have together and he followed Roman as the group split up.  
Roman takes theater during these periods, while Patton is in FACS and Logan is working in the school tech shop during this period.  
Virgil was only grateful for his power during this class. Goodness knows what would happen if I was forced to participate. He did enjoy learning about all of the different plays and musicals they discussed throughout the year, as well as all of the tech crew tips. He thinks he’d enjoy being a part of the tech crew, able to work in the shadows. Then again it would be a panic attack in the making giving useless little him that much responsibility.  
He gets whacked in the face by a thick book floating around Roman when he suddenly stops in the doorway. He recoils backward, hand reaching up to rub at his face as he narrowly avoids being stabbed by a katana of all things.  
He leans to the side, trying to see what had caused Roman to stop and groans out loud. Just great. Now I not only have to deal with Roman and his brother’s boyfriend Janus in the same class, I’m stuck with the actual twin.  
Remus is curled up, practically on Janus’s lap and animatedly talking about something most likely gruesome, judging by the crushed skulls, dripping organs, and gleaming knives surrounding him. Janus doesn’t seem to be bothered at all, simply glaring at Roman in the doorway, as if threatening to end his life if he makes a scene with Remus.  
Roman glares back and goes to take his seat across the room, blessedly choosing to ignore his brother rather than engage in a fight.  
The class period is strained, Roman and Remus practically at each other's throats the whole time, Janus just barely managing to diffuse the situation. Normally he would encourage it or even be the one to provoke Roman but it seems like the same doesn’t apply to Remus. I don’t like either of them but it’s kinda cute how caring Janus is towards Remus, though he would deny ever thinking that if anyone asked.  
Right before the class period is about to end, Virgil bolts out the door. He heads towards the cafeteria, rushing to beat the bell so that he can grab something without having to curl up into a corner to avoid touching anybody. He carefully grabs a plate, and places a sandwich and a cup of canned peaches onto it, making sure to bring everything over to his plane so there isn’t a random plate floating around. He runs out of the cafeteria just as the bell rings, barely managing to beat the flood of students.  
Virgil heads over to the benches outside of the cafeteria, starting to eat as he waits for the others to show up. Patton got special permission for him and his friends to eat lunch outside of the cafeteria, seeing as the last time Patton ate in the cafeteria, he puked from the completely overwhelming swamp of emotions.  
Speak of the devil, there’s Patton heading over right now. He waves at Roman and Logan who go into the cafeteria to get lunch and pulls out his own lunch. Virgil continues to eat his lunch, closing his eyes and relaxing now that there isn’t really anybody around. Patton relaxes as well, smiling as he starts to eat his sandwich.  
He jumps when there’s a slam right by his head, snapping up with his eyes wide. Patton jumps as well, seeming confused by his own reaction seeing as he wasn’t so dumb as to completely let his guard down and close his eyes. As Virgil looks over to see what the slam was, he realizes it was Roman being extra dramatic as he looks over at Logan and Patton.  
“That bastard brother of mine,” he starts, practically growling.  
“Language,” Patton admonishes, his eyes widening.  
“Sorry Padre. I’m just frustrated that demented idiot has smashed his way into the one thing I managed to do without him screwing it up. I don’t even understand why he’s in the class,” he whines. Jeez, we get it, you don’t like him. Get over yourself, he only threatened murder or sex 5 times during the class period.  
“I vaguely understand why Janus is in the class. It lets him get away with being the pathological liar that he is, but seriously,” he groans dramatically, “that didn’t mean that we needed another problem in the class.”  
“Aw, cheer up Roman, it can’t be that bad.” Patton says sympathetically, trying to comfort him.  
“Besides,” Logan interjects, “I believe you should focus a bit more on your other classes. You could be a straight A student like Patton and myself if only you focused and stopped daydreaming during class.”  
Roman grumbles at this and the conversation switches topics. Virgil stops paying attention as he pulls his homework binder from his backpack, settling into their familiar chatter as he works on the problems.


	2. Telula

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to head home after school.

Virgil groans as the dismissal bell rings, slumping over against the wall instead of joining the flood of students rushing out of the door. Once the classroom clears, he sighs and stands up. Heaving his backpack up off the floor, he nearly collapses from the weight.  
He sighs again as he trudges out of the school and headed towards his home, which just happened to be the local animal shelter. He puts on his headphones as he walks, humming along to the music. He lets a small smile fill his face as the building comes into view, and with it, the only person who actually knows and cares about his existence.  
He opens the door out of courtesy and smiles when Telula’s head pops up from behind the desk. “Is that you Virgil?” she asks, watching the board that she’d created once she realized he was there. He slides down the magnet labelled yes and she hides a smile as she berates me, “Child, how many times do I have to tell you? Close the door when you come in!”  
Virgil shakes his head, laughing to himself as he goes over and pushes the door shut. Telula owns the town’s only animal shelter, a reasonably sized place that she manages to run “by herself”. What nobody realizes is that she has had a helper every single day for the past 7 years. People always call her a crazy old lady, but little do they know that they’re the oblivious ones.  
He slid the “Help?” magnet down and Telula chuckles as her eyes light up mischievously.  
"You're on litter box duty today~" she sings, laughing to herself as though trying to imagine the face he's making right now.  
He can assure you that whatever she's imagining comes nowhere near the reality of it. He groans and drops his backpack onto the front desk with a thud. Virgil absolutely hates litter box days. It smells awful and the skittish shelter cats don't appreciate him invading their space. A large majority of the scars that he has are scratches from when he’s had to venture into the cat's personal space.  
He leaves his bag behind as he goes and grabs the cleaning supplies, not bothering to expend the energy needed to pull them to his plane. Telula's the only one here and he can just set them down if anybody comes in.  
~~~  
After he finishes, he goes and grabs his backpack, sitting down to start working on the leftover homework he hadn’t managed to finish in class. Telula starts getting ready to close up for the night, calling out to him, "Are you working on homework Virge?" I knock once on the floor with my book so she can hear. The board is useful for more complex answers but for simple yes, no questions, I answer with one knock for yes and two for no.  
"Make sure you get your work done kid. Just because you don't really get feedback on it doesn't mean it isn't still important." Telula lectures in what I call her "mother voice." As much as she likes to tease and poke fun at him, Virgil knows that she only wants the best for him and will have his back if he ever needs it.  
She finishes getting stuff cleaned up for the night and heads back into her office for a few minutes. When she comes back out, she's holding a microwave dinner which she sets down on the front desk.  
"I expect you to eat this, make sure you don't get distracted. I'm going to head home now, get some sleep tonight Virgil."  
She catches the paper airplane he throws her way, our nightly routine and reads it with a soft smile on her face. He had drawn her a little hedgehog wearing a t-shirt that says "hug monster."  
She blows him a kiss as she leaves, locking the door behind her. He walks over to see what dinner is going to be and find some macaroni with ham bites in it. Grabbing it, he heads back over to where he was working and plops back down. Thank fuck it's only the first day of school and there isn't much homework. He settles in to finish his work for the night before he inevitably ends up going to sleep in Missy's cage. She's one of the oldest cats here and a great cuddler.


	3. Routine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is that a plot I see there? Maybe...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw for the chapter (almost forgot)  
> Panic attack (this is based off my own personal experience and it's different for everyone so please be respectful of that)  
> That's it for this chapter

Virgil settles into a routine of waking up, going to school, helping around shop after school, and then doing homework for the night. He usually goes to sleep around two in the morning? And that's only partially due to the teachers assigning way too much work.  
No, the reason for his late nights are caused by a certain duo who seem to have it out for him. He knows Logan and Patton probably mean well, but hoping someone is going to notice his existence one day and someone actually noticing it are two very different things. He hadn’t anticipated the extra stress it would add to have people try to interact with him and he’s started to consider avoiding the group altogether. As much as he tries to deny it though, he could never manage to tear himself away from the familiarity of their presence.  
Virgil is currently sitting in the back of the classroom, listening to the teacher enthusiastically drone on. How anyone can like math that much, he has no idea. He starts to drift off, and continues to take notes, though he’s half asleep at this point. He doesn’t notice Patton yawning and then looking around questioningly, or him catching Logan’s eye and motioning towards the back corner where he’s sitting.  
He jolts back awake when the bell rings and finds that most of his classmates are already filing out of the classroom. He jumps up and goes to grab his backpack but notices a flutter of paper falling to the ground. He glances around the now empty classroom and hesitantly reaches out to pick up the paper. He nearly drops it in shock however when he sees it’s a note addressed to him.  
His breath catches in his throat and he clutches the note tight, heart hammering. He forces himself to take a deep breath and slowly looks down to read through the entire note.  
“Salutations,  
Lately, Patton and myself have been noticing a discrepancy in both of our abilities in the fact that there is seemingly an extra presence detected through aforementioned abilities. While Patton believes you to be a ghost of some sort, I theorize that it most likely has something to do with your own ability. If you’d be willing, I would like to meet with you in the library afterschool today, to see if we could discover the true nature of this situation. If you are amenable, I look forward to meeting you.  
Logan Berry”  
Virgil’s eyes widen as he reads the note and he dully notes that Logan is rather smart through the fog that seems to descend on his brain. He slowly sinks down onto the floor, curling into a small ball as he tries to hide in his hoodie. Oh fuck, they see me. They know I’m here. Shit I fucked up, I’m gonna screw this up. Why does he want to meet with me? Is he goint to try and murder me? It’s not like it’ll be hard to get away with seeing as I don’t exit as a person to them. Is he going to tell me to stop following them? Dammit V, you just had to go and screw it up.  
He struggles to inhale, feeling like a clamp is squeezing around his lungs as his thoughts race on. He knows, knows that he’s being illogical, that this probably isn’t going to happen, but probably is no guarantee. What ifs dog his brain, a constant companion and he struggles to regain control of himself, to even think through the barrage. He tries to tap out the pattern for one of his breathing exercises, but he keeps stuttering and having to restart.  
Eventually he manages to calm down enough so he can at least breath and when he glances up he notices that almost an entire period has passed by. He’d missed most of the last period. Shit. It’s almost time for him to choose whether to go meet Logan in the library. He’s torn, he doesn’t want to screw it up anymore by going but a small blossom of hope had taken root, the slight possibility that he could actually talk to someone. Maybe even make a friend, though why anyone would ever agree to be friends with him, he couldn’t say.  
He sighs at himself, and asks himself out loud, “you’ve already made up your mind about going, huh? Ok, you don’t necessarily have to talk to him, you can just go and see what he wants. And if he turns out to be a knife wielding murderer, you can just run away. He sucks at physical activity even more than you.”  
His mind made up, Virgil heads to the library so that he can be there when Logan arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... Not dead yet XD  
> I'm so sorry this took so long but after this I should hopefully be more consistent in posting. I went back and edited the previous chapters (mostly fixing verb tense and perspective stuff, just grammar things) so if you're interested in seeing the improved chapters I'd love to hear any feedback! If not, that's fine too. An if you're new, just disregard this.  
> If you have any questions regarding the universe it's set in, please ask me, I did way too much background stuff that's basically irrelevant to the story. Yeesh I've been rambling, apologies for that I'm just excited to finally get this chapter out!

**Author's Note:**

> Runs on a block schedule. This means they have four classes per school day, with alternating sets of four to total as right classes. This is the type of schedule I use so I find it easier to write it.


End file.
